occasion to digress into a censure on modern chairs, as having
degenerated from the dignity and comfort of high-backed antiquity.

Adjoining to his room is a small cabinet, which he calls his study.
Here are some hanging shelves, of his own construction, on which are
several old works on hawking, hunting, and farriery, and a collection
or two of poems and songs of the reign of Elizabeth, which he studies
out of compliment to the Squire; together with the Novelist's
Magazine, the Sporting Magazine; the Racing Calendar, a volume or two
of the Newgate Calendar, a book of peerage, and another of heraldry.

His sporting dresses hang on pegs in a small closet; and about the
walls of his apartment are hooks to hold his fishing-tackle, whips,
spurs, and a favourite fowling-piece, curiously wrought and inlaid,
which he inherits from his grandfather. He has, also, a couple of old
single-keyed flutes, and a fiddle which he has repeatedly patched and
mended himself, affirming it to be a veritable Cremona, though I have
never heard him extract a single note from it that was not enough to
make one's blood run cold.

From this little nest his fiddle will often be heard, in the stillness
of mid-day, drowsily sawing some long-forgotten tune; for he prides
himself on having a choice collection of good old English music, and
will scarcely have any thing to do with modern composers. The time,
however, at which his musical powers are of most use, is now and then
of an evening, when he plays for the children to dance in the hall,
and he passes among them and the servants for a perfect Orpheus.

His chamber also bears evidence of his various avocations: there are
half-copied sheets of music; designs for needle-work; sketches of